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eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”
So those “little sins” are not so little after all: the nasty retort the “me first” pride the flash of lust at the mall the anger at someone who got in your way those little bitter thoughts your addiction to little pleasures the impatience with a loved one
but they depict a deeply needy heart. They remind you and me that we have not risen above our need for rescuing grace. They tell us that what we have found in Christ we still desperately need.
rescuing, forgiving, transforming grace,
We just never stop talking to ourselves. We never stop preaching some kind of gospel
“For this I have a reliable and understanding High Priest.”
delivery mechanism
It is self-centered religiosity that bears little resemblance to the faith of the Bible.
Those “good things” come in a person, and his name is Jesus.
The appropriateness of my responses to others is directly related to the accuracy of my view of myself, and for that there is grace too.
He works by grace to craft us into people of settled, hopeful, courageous, active, celebratory, God-glorifying faith.
Fear lives and rules in the heart of a believer who has forgotten God’s sovereignty and grace.
why should I be haunted by what you think of me?
Because you know what he thinks of you, you are free to worry less about what the person next to you thinks.
Be careful when you’re full that you do not forget.
Just stop.
Our problem is our delusions of strength that keep us from seeking the grace that strengthens us in our weakness.
It is all a failed quest for the self-congratulatory glory of independence.
He calls you to mountains too big to climb so that in your inability, you will look to him. He leads you to taste failure so that you will find your hope in him.
the right here, right now grace
empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.
God has not promised that you will see it beforehand.
you move forward in the certainty that he is with you, for you, and in you.
We permit ourselves to feel small, unable, alone, unprepared, and bereft of resources.
need-driven addiction (spiritual slavery)
Isn’t it good to know that Jesus came to free us from our idolatry?
But church isn’t an interdependent, webbed-together community of personally focused love and grace for us all.
relationship.
So we need to be rescued from our quest for independence and brought into relationship with the One who really does have everything we need.
dirtied and burdened
personal grief and confession, not condemnation of your neighbor.
God’s grace calls you to suffer and it calls you to wait, but it never calls you to stand in your own strength or to stand alone.
He wants more than reformed behavior; he sent his Son to die for you so that you would have a new heart, one that is constantly being renewed. If your heart is your problem, then the grace of heart change is your only hope.
tool of his grace.
Will I be loved? 2. Will people tolerate me once they really get to know me? 3. Will I have what I need to live?
grasp
you have everything that you need.
Why would we construct a false façade of righteousness when Jesus has given his righteousness over to our account?
Why act as if we’re something that we’re not when grace has met us right where we are?
Forsake excusing, denial, and all other acts of gospel irrationality that minimize your sin.
so that no one may boast”
Your hope is not based on how well you are doing, but on what Jesus has done for you.
Yes, you’re weak, you’re often foolish, and you tend to want your own way, but God’s redeeming grace is greater.
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
put ourselves in the center of the story. We evaluate life from the vantage point of a scary and tragic “me-ism.”
I must never think that my life is ruled by my difficulty.
none of us has outlived our need for the rescuing mercy of an ever-present and ever-willing Redeemer.
The weakness in our love demonstrates how much our hope still rests on a God who will love us even on our very worst day.
I don’t know the motivations of my heart,
Don’t allow yourself to have a view of yourself, of others, of circumstances, of daily joys and struggles, of God, of meaning and purpose, and of what life is all about that is devoid of this gorgeous redemptive reality: mercy.
